Butterfly Dream: Mind and Woods Haiku by Jack Galmitz

English Original

   can’t

      be

   out

     of

    yr

  mind

   woods

 near

   by

Yards & Lots, 2012

Jack Galmitz 

 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

     你

不可能

  把附近

     的

   樹林

忘得

   一

  乾

 二淨

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

      你

 不可能

   把附近

       的

     树林

忘得

    一

    干

   二净

Bio Sketch 

 

Jack Galmitz was born in NYC in 1951. He received a Ph.D in English from the University of Buffalo.  He is an Associate of the Haiku Foundation and Contributing Editor at Roadrunner.  His most recent books are Views (Cyberwit.net, 2012),  Letters (Lulu Press, 2012), yards & lots (Middle Island Press, 2012), not-zero-sum (Impress 2015) and Takeout (Impress, 2015).  He lives in New York with his wife and stepson.

Poetic Musings: CloudsofSmoke Vertical Haiku by Chen-ou Liu

above

cloudsofsmoke

cloudsofsmoke

Gaza

above

NeverEnding Story, September 16, 2024

Chen-ou Liu

Commentary: This haiku is written in a vertical format and read from bottom to top. The format itself reveals the Narrator's/observer's bottom-up perspective, grounded in harsh reality of Israel's bombing of Gaza, a devastating fact that can be inferred from the results of huge bomb blasts, "clouds of smoke above clouds of smoke."  The use  of repetition "above" twice and "cloudsofsmoke" twice, in this extremely short haiku of 5 words is visually poignant, enhancing the emotionally suggestive power of this vertical haiku about Israel's genocide in Gaza (FYI: Middle East Monitor, Oct. 8: South Africa to present new evidence of Israel's genocide in Gaza to the International Court of Justice, ICJ)

Note: This vertical haiku is the opening haiku of "Relentless," a haiku set written in vertical and traditional formats:

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, XCVIII: "cloudsofsmoke" 

Relentless 

above

cloudsofsmoke

cloudsofsmoke

Gaza

above

smoky darkness ...

scream after scream the reasons why

all blow away

NeverEnding Story, September 16, 2024